


Out of Time; Chaos Theory

by DevinTowerwood



Series: Life in Snippets [2]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Multi, Polyamory, Supernatural AU - Freeform, bigender!Chloe Price, trans!Victoria - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 06:21:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4866335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevinTowerwood/pseuds/DevinTowerwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The supernatural becomes ever clearer while the puzzle itself becomes apparent to Kate, Max, and Victoria. The three grow closer as omens of the future reveal themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tuesday Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things often start out the same for Kate Marsh as she does her best to remain out of the line of sight. Today, though, things are a little easier between her and Victoria Chase, her former bully.  
> Courtney, Taylor, and Victoria work some stuff out.

** **

**Art By:[ Ochairo](http://ochairo.tumblr.com/)**

Kate’s mornings always started the same way. At 6:30am, her alarm would go off and she would hit snooze. At 6:38, she would get up as the alarm went off again and she was forcibly made conscious. She’d sit on the edge of her bed for a minute before 6:40 reminded her how little time she had, then she’d put on her pajamas, feed Alice, grab her shower supplies, and head to the shower fifteen minutes before anyone else was up.

At the end of her shower, everyone else would just be getting up, and she, at worst, ran into other people while she was brushing her teeth after the shower. And while that happened today, she would hardly call it ‘at worst’.

Max was often one of the first ones up, and today was no exception. She teetered in unsteadily, fresh out of bed and barely conscious, a messy bag of shower supplies in her limp left hand. She brightened, if not necessarily animated, when she saw the dirty blonde. “Hey Kate.”

“Hew Mawx,” Kate garbled through her tooth brush before leaning down to spit out the paste. “Hey Max. How did you sleep?”

The photographer beamed. “Awesomely. I really, really needed a good night’s sleep after yesterday, and I’m glad I got it.” She stared through the hooded eyes of semi-consciousness. “Also, you should really try your hair down more. It’s just, like, wowzers like this.”

Kate glowed warm, raising her free hand to touch her dark, wet hair on her shoulders. Kate often felt that it got in the way when she played her violin, or while drawing, or while writing papers, so she almost always kept it up. “Thanks Max, although I’m afraid it’s not so nice dry - it’s too thick. It gets . . fluffy.”

Max sniggered as she got into the middle shower - “I think I’d like to see that.” Then she closed the curtain, and Kate finished up brushing her teeth.   
Just as Kate was turning to exit, however, Victoria walked in, positively radiating glee.

“Good morning Kate!”

“Well, hey Victoria.” Victoria woke up later than everyone else, but she, Courtney, and Taylor tended to come in a pack and dominate the mirrors while they got ready for breakfast. “Where’s Courtney and Taylor?”

Victoria just now seemed to realize she was without them, turning around partially to see if they were there. “Oh. Those two? Probably not up yet. I was just too antsy to stay in bed. I guess I just woke up in a good mood, and Dana’s playing some nice upbeat music,” she snapped her fingers as if she was just so totally into life, “And, I don’t know, everything’s cool.”  
Without skipping a beat, Victoria seemed to shift gears, and patted Kate on her upper arm in a familiar way that was all together uncharacteristic. “Say, did you see that weird snowfall on your date with Max last night?”

Kate grinned, leaning forward, suddenly aware of the acute height difference between her as Miss Chase. It was weird how she only seemed to recognize it when she was feeling threatened and when she was trying to figure out how high she could stand on her toes. “See it? You should check out Max’s Instagram - she and her camera could be called as expert witnesses on the timeline of it, so long as the court doesn’t protest to sepia.” She was giddy. Victoria seemed giddy too.  
Kate leaned in closer, saying as quietly as she could over the hum of the shower:  _“She’s right there in that shower, you know.”_ Her eyes darted to the central shower.

Victoria looked positively enthused, her hand stroking the connection of her neck and chin as if a great plan was forming. And then, she whispered back,  _“This is going to be really gay, hold on.”_

Kate held her hand to her lips to hold back chuckling as Victoria, silently as she could, crept over to the shower curtain on her tippie toes, ducking so that her hair couldn’t be seen over it. A lilting song became audible in the relative quiet:

 _“’To all of you / American girls / It’s sad to / Imagine a world without you / American girls I’d like to / be part of the w’_ \- wha HEY WHAT?!” As Victoria pulled aside the curtain about halfway, leaving Kate with only the corners of Max’s hair and feet visible, Kate saw Victoria’s hand snake inside the little cubicle, and heard a loud slap as Max hopped into the air. Victoria had the curtain closed in an instant, but it could hardly shut out Max’s yelling:

“TORI WHAT THE FUCK?” Nevertheless, Victoria was half-collapsed to the ground, laughing hysterically while Kate leaned back against the sink, giggling in the vaguely-uncomfortable-left-out-but-still-funny sort of way.

Max continued, knowing she was without all possible retorts: “Oh my lord, you have no idea what sort of trouble you’re in. I’m going to get you good - and you’re not going to see it coming!” Her warning was weak, though, and mostly ignored as Courtney and Taylor made their into the bathroom, and Kate stopped laughing, suddenly aware of the density of the people in the bathroom and feeling crowded.

Courtney seemed to zero in on Victoria’s barely-suppressed laughter as she bit her lip, as well as Kate’s sudden shift in posture as she became self-conscious. “Don’t you have some abstinence-inducing book club to run, Katie?” The nickname was clearly mocking, and the blush that filled Kate’s cheeks was very unlike the one before.  
She looked down, not meeting Victoria’s eyes as she promised, “See you later, Victoria,” and darted between Taylor and Courtney to leave the bathroom.

* * *

 

Victoria lowered her green stare at Courtney, responding her hostility in kind: “Hey, you can’t talk to Kate like that. Just leave her alone, all right?”

For some reason, this seemed to incite Taylor, who had barely spoken a word to Victoria for days. “Oh, really, we can’t? You just decide what’s fair game and what’s not? No wonder you haven’t been around lately - you’re too busy trying to hook up with every lesbo at Blackwell.”

Victoria’s eyes turned to Taylor, and while she felt hurt, it was just anger bubbling to the surface, “Where the fuck is this coming from? Kate’s been nothing but quiet and nice all year - and I don’t remember you being such homophobic bitches.”

Max’s eyes peered out from a break in the shower curtain, and Victoria saw them, but the look she gave her girlfriend was clear: _Let me take this one_. Max stayed silent, just . . . watching.

The tag team didn’t end, though, and Courtney rounded on her: “Where’s this coming from? He-he-hello? You’ve stopped contributing anything to the Vortex Club that you’re supposed to be helping to run. You haven’t come out with us once since you started dating that Seattle hipster. You couldn’t even make time to go with Taylor to see her mom _in the hospital_ when your _girlfriend_ managed to make the time. Are you just done with us now that you’ve got girlfriends that play for your team?”

Victoria was quiet. Hurt. Hurt. She could see it in their eyes, and she could feel it. And somehow, that stopped her escalation. Instead, she just met their eyes, and after maybe ten seconds, she could see shame enter their eyes. They sat with it for a moment, and then Victoria offered out her hand to Taylor, who hesitated, but then reached her and took her hand, lacing her fingers with the tall blonde’s. Courtney sighed, but then she too took Victoria’s hand, and then offered her other one to Taylor, and who took it readily.

“I’ll make time. I’m sorry that I didn’t go with you, Taylor, but I will. And we can work on the party. I don’t want to fight you. But you can’t say that shit about Max, okay? - or Kate. They’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

Taylor did the tiny nods that people do when they experience regret, and she squeezed Victoria’s hand. “I’m sorry. Max is cool, I shouldn’t have said that. We just sort of feel . . . abandoned, you know? And when we met up yesterday you just could not seem less interested . . . but I trust you.”

Courtney’s lips pursed, but if anything, she seemed more distressed than either Victoria or Taylor. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. And I know it must be such a relief to have someone so close that doesn’t drag you down . . . no offense to Nathan.”  
Backhanded as that was, Victoria tried to look past it for the good of the moment.

Courtney continued, “I’ll apologize to Kate. But you have _got_ to remember that we’re your friends still, okay?”

“Okay.”

Taylor concluded, holding her friends’ hands aloft. “Okay.”

Victoria tried to formulate a reason to pull them out of the room so that Max could get out of the shower without making things awkward. “Here, guys . . . we’re a mess. Let’s go to your room, Courtney, and get ready - we’ll come back when we’re fit for the public bathroom.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

* * *

 

The traffic in the bathroom had increased by the time Max was out, but when she finally emerged from the shower, she noticed some text scrawled along the far right mirror - a link that included the name ‘Katesvid’. She pulled her phone from her waistband to put it into search, but when she looked back up at it, it was gone.

“Huh.”

 


	2. Tuesday at Two Whales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan invites Max out to Two Whales diner, where she witnesses a perfectly ordinary scene.

Max rapped her knuckles on Kate’s door, but there was no response. Either she was out, or not looking to talk. However, Max’s disappointment only got so far before her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her pocket.

Max chose today as her trashy clothes day as it was her least-busy day, only having Photography for class, which didn’t even start until 11:00am when it was, as it turned out, 7:47am. To clarify, trashy meant that she was wearing a two-year-old t-shirt containing early-era Etsy artwork of a hot dog and a container of mustard clinging to a horde of balloons like a post-modern version of the movie Up; pair that with designer jeans and Chuck Taylors and you have a pretty good sense of Max’s style pre-Victoria.

> **Nathan:**  2 whales w/ u and vic?
> 
> **Max:**  she’s busy. I’m still up for waffles, though.
> 
> **Nathan:**  sounds good. meet you outside?
> 
> **Max:**  yeah. Be right there.

Max adjusted her messenger bag and made sure that she had her wallet, then exited the girl’s dorm.

She was immediately greeted by a lovely tune being played on violin. As she strolled down the steps, she located the source: Kate sat on the far right bench, and, with her eyes closed, was playing a slow but beautiful melody. Max scoured the area and located Nathan leaning against the tree with the unpopular-but-hard-to-remove words: ‘Rachel owes me money’. Samuel sat on a bench in the center of the little courtyard, clearly watching Kate play - perhaps five feet from him, a squirrel was nibbling on what looked like fragmented pieces of an old bagel.

Nathan gestured for Max to come over, but she held a finger up to ask him to wait, nodding her head over towards Kate. He waved a single hand at her like  _‘bah’_ , but she trotted her way into the center of the courtyard, moving a little past Samuel.

Max started trying to line up the shot, crouching down to get a low angle on Kate, trying to create a halo effect on Kate to duplicate a flat plane.

Samuel began in his breathy voice, “She’s quite something, isn’t she?”

Max nodded affirmative, then placed her eye back to her viewfinder. “For someone who likes a quiet life, she’s too talented for her own good.”

Samuel seemed to agree, but he said it strangely: “It would be a shame if something were to happen to her.”

“Yeah.” Max’s attention was pretty diverted from the conversation, because for some reason the photo wouldn’t come into focus. While the corner of the dorms and the forest were in fine resolution, Kate seemed indistinct and blurry, and that was just through the viewfinder. She tried adjusting the focus, but Kate’s form just resisted being defined.

“Ugh. I don’t know why, but I can’t get the focus on Kate. I’m having so much trouble with this thing-” she indicated to her new camera to Samuel, as much to complain as to excuse herself, nevermind show off her camera.

Samuel’s response wasn’t quite what she was expecting though: “Maybe you just can’t capture her spirit in something like that.”

Max made brief eye contact with Samuel, but then she looked away. “Maybe . . . maybe I should stick with my Polaroid until I get the hang of this thing.”

“It’s not always best to avoid things we don’t understand.”

Max’s spine chilled as he said that, but she knew he couldn’t have meant it like she took it. He was talking about the camera, not Chloe. There was no way he could know anything about that. “Well . . . okay. See you Samuel.”

“Bye Max.”

\--

Joyce looked nearly overjoyed as Max entered the Two Whales, although her expression quickly fell to a tense one as she noticed that the brunette was accompanied by Nathan Prescott. Trevor, who was sitting across from a very stoned Justin, looked up as Nathan entered the diner, and his eyes tracked him all the way until he and Max sat down in the corner. The duo had to slip past an old woman in ratty clothes as she left the bathroom, but as they fell into their seats, Joyce was hot on their heels. Trevor’s eyes lowered back towards his friend, and the two started to talk quietly, leaning forward over the table as he did so.

“Why hello there Max, _‘n_  Nathan, it’s good to see you this morning. I’m sorry I didn’t get to say bye before you left the house yesterday, I heard you were in an awful rush.”

Max nodded, swiping a finger just under her nose nervously as she replied, “Yeah, I, uh, had early class that I forgot about. It’s good to see you, Joyce.”  
Nathan’s eyes broke from the waitress and fell onto Max. He knew she was lying - their morning Monday class was English, but the teacher was out this week. Still, he said nothing, lacing his fingers together and placing his elbows on the table, looking out the window as if he didn’t even see Joyce.

“Well, you too Maxine, and you, Mr. Prescott. What can I get you two to drink?”

Max zipped straight to the first thing that came to mind: “Just coffee for me, thanks.”  
Nathan took a moment to think, as if he were really mulling it over, but then he just said, “Ah, a coke. And water, too.”   
Joyce nodded, perfectly used to Nathan’s curt attitude as she wrote the orders down. “I’ll be back with those in just a minute.”

Max then noticed that she really, really needed to pee, and the coffee was not going to help that. “I’ll be right back,” she announced, standing. Nathan nodded, finding it a little weird that she hadn’t taken off her messenger bag, but just shrugged as she entered the bathroom.

When Max opened the door, she was immediately surprised to find lines of text on nearly every surface. She expected this from the Blackwell bathrooms, but that so much graffiti was in here was pretty sad. From what she could tell, most of it was pretty recent.  
The first one she noticed in particular was the first scribble on the first door:  **“Kate Marsh love u long time”** , which drew a sound of disgust from her.  _No matter how many snobby bitches you cut down,_  she thought,  _there’s just two more waiting to take her place._  

Another one read  **“ARCADIA GAY SUCKS DECK”**. While she was impressed at the aversion to the phallus of another man being so intense that somebody couldn’t so much as write the word ‘dick’, she did reply aloud, “Hate to break it to you, but I have a girlfriend.”  
When she emerged from the stall, even more graffiti caught her eye. Somebody had drawn a rather artistically detailed doe next to the mirror, adjacent to scratches that read  **“Fire Walk / With Me”**  in the mirror.

She had no idea what it meant, but these two things felt different from the others. Once she had washed her hands, she pulled out her camera and leveled it at the scratch-text. However, just as she framed it right, she saw something large entering the bathroom in the mirror, and spun around to face it.  
But there was nothing. She breathed deeply, overcoming her brief moment of panic. _What is going on with me_?, she questioned, just putting her camera away for now.

She sat back down with Nathan, noticing that her coffee had already arrived. As she lifted it, she became aware that the lady in the booth next to them wouldn’t stop staring, agitated, out the window. Max just focused on ignoring her - people were always acting weird around here.

Nathan was halfway done with his coke already, and he took another sip. “How was your, uh, tea thing with Kate yesterday?”

Max looked a little confused, blowing on her coffee. “It was cool, especially with the snow. How’d you hear about it?”

Nathan scratched the back of his neck, then just replied in a voice that was pushed into casualness: “Vic and I went out last night, she mentioned it.” He was tapping his foot, and scratching his arm. There were bags under his eyes, which were blood shot. Max hadn’t noticed before.

“To Frank’s?” she asked. Victoria never seemed to like going there, and she especially tried to stay out of Nathan’s dealing, so that surprised her.

He nodded pretty vigorously, but looked out the window, as if expecting to see something. “Yeah. I just needed to chill a little, ya know.”

Max looked directly at him. “I see that.” It was a short comment, and Max sipped her coffee.

This seemed to irk him, and he replied, although without looking at her, “You don’t see shit, Max Caulfield.” 

That left them both quiet, drinking their drinks, but luckily Joyce was back to their table before long. “Now, what can I get you two?”

Max smiled brightly - incoming awesome food. “I’d love some waffles - the morning special.” Joyce smiled in response as she wrote it down - it was exactly what Max used to get when she was here.  
Joyce turned her attention to Nathan. “And for you?”  
Again, he took a moment to think, but then he downed the rest of his coke and pushed it towards the edge of the table. “Just another coke.”

She nodded, and took his cup as she turned and headed back behind the counter.

Max and Nathan stayed quiet, just listening to the sounds of the diner. Max watched Joyce as she made her round, precision in the extreme.

 _Smash_. “Oops!” proclaims one of the red-neck looking truckers, his glass shattered in front of Joyce’s feet. The man next to him jumped, turning towards the sound and leaning back, even though essentially everyone else in the diner just turned to look.  
“Did you break another cup? Really? No refill for you!”

The trucker started to make some half-assed excuse, but the man next to him tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Now don’t you start that shit. Try coming in without a few beers in you and maybe you won’t keep looking like such an asshole.” Max recognized that man on the bar next to the trucker as he turned to face forward again - it was David, the bus driver. Weird how everyone came to this one diner. Appreciatively, Joyce leaned between David and the trucker, and refilled David’s cup of coffee, giving him a wink as she resumed her loop of the diner.

As she passed by, Trevor leaned a little out of his seat, making eye contact with Max briefly before leaning back into his seat. Then, a cop at the bar’s radio started to go off. Max could never really understand the garbles that came from those things, but he sure seemed to.  
He looked really disappointed to hear it. “Shoot, now I gotta take this call and leave my breakfast... Hey, where’s my partner?”

His question didn’t last long, as the blare of sirens started and his police vehicle shot past the Two Whales.  
Which would be terribly fascinating, except that a few seconds later, Max noticed a roach climbing up the Jukebox, which seemed to contrast sharply with the relative cleanness of the store (minus the bathroom). As it made its way up the glass, though, the music suddenly started cutting and looping, sounding like grating metal.

“Ah, shit, on my favorite song outta there, too,” moaned the trucker.

“Could somebody check that?” Joyce asked, emerging once again from behind the counter with a plate of food, making a beeline for Max. She sat down the hot waffles topped with whip cream, hashbrowns, and two links of sausage right in front of Max.

“Thank you Joyce.”

“No problem, sweetie,” she replied, dropping Nathan’s refreshed coke in front of him.

\--

“So, how do you know Joyce?” Nathan inquired as he was driving them back to Blackwell.

“Oh, I’m a family friend. Her daughter, Chloe, was my best friend when I lived in Arcadia Bay with my family.” It was rare that Nathan showed idle curiosity in anything, especially Max, so she was sort of eager to respond.

“Chloe . . . as in Chloe Price?” Somehow, that sounded intriguing to him.

“Yeah. Did you know her?” They should have gone to school together, so that was hardly outside of the realm of possibility.

“Hmm? Know? Where is she?”

This just confused Max, “She’s here, in Arcadia Bay. She was in an accident a few years ago, though, and can’t keep coming to school. Did you know her before then?”

Nathan shook his head, leaning on his elbow against the door of his car. “Nah I’ve just . . . heard the name.”

Something about what he said sounded off to Max, but things often sounded off from him to her. Victoria always seemed to get what was going on, but Max figured it was better to just stay out of it.


	3. New Emotions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A confusing array of emotions comes over Victoria, leading her to a decision she may regret. An awkward moment between Nathan, Victoria, and Kate occurs.

Max was off hunting photos. While this was hardly a new affair of hers, Victoria felt particularly disengaged today. Photography had been a dud - Mr. Jefferson had been a good ten minutes late getting into class because of a personal phone call, and he had been visibly irritated throughout the class. He snidely brought up the fact that neither Max nor Stella had turned in a photo yet (although Stella turned hers in after class, leaving Max ultimately singled out), and otherwise acted like a total prick.

Everything else was working out fine, which was nice. The End of the World party was going strong, and the VIP list was constructed throughout the day. Honestly, things were looking up for Victoria, but she just felt so emotionally drained.

While Max was prowling about Arcadia Bay, this conversation had transpired:

> **Max:** hey. Frank sent me a text earlier asking why you were asking about date rape drugs. Is this about Kate?
> 
> **Victoria:** Yeah. Sort of. I was worried whoever tried dosing Kate might have gotten something from him, but he says he doesn’t deal stuff like that. Just recreational stuff.
> 
> **Max:** yeah, that’s what I thought. I’ll tell him about kate, though, in case he knows where they might have gotten it.
> 
> **Victoria:** Good thinking, Sherlock. I love you.
> 
> **Max:** i love you too, tori.

Max was becoming a part of the community, Victoria could tell. She had mixed feelings about it: she liked watching Max feel more and more as if she belonged, but she also sort of resented sharing her time. Max just never seemed to stop going - even when she pushed herself to the point of collapse, she kept going to keep from falling into the collapse. It was respectable. Admirable, even. But Victoria couldn’t keep up.

This was particularly evident, but regrettable to feel, when they’d talked during Language of Photography. Max asked if she’s come with her to see Chloe, who’d requested a girl’s night with Max ‘and her friends’ - apparently Max hadn’t found the time to bring up their relationship, either. Victoria agreed, of course, but she just felt so weird to come from such a different sphere of Max’s life and to try and spend time, especially when she knew this would be a date with a girl who would be dead before long . . .

And so, Victoria found herself at her computer with a mirror and a makeup bag. On the screen played something deep into the third season of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ , but she’d seen it so many times that she was mostly focusing on the mirror. Today she wanted to feel powerful, and so red became her color of choice - crimson lipstick a red-black gradient in her eye shadow. When she saw her face like this, smooth and honey colored, but with hardness in every animation: the blades in her eyes, the frames of her brow, the point of her nose, the blood and lust alike on her lips  . . . it reminded her how far she’d come. It was armor. But it was armor she’d worked to wear. An honor to wear.

When she was done, she held her phone aloft and took a few (dozen) shots. When she went to weed out the weak ones, she was pleased to find that it was a difficult process.

\--

“Victoria? Are you there?” Essentially nobody ever knocked on her door unless they were sure they could speak to her, and that usually left Victoria with the confidence to check it out without being harassed (unless it was by Courtney, but it didn’t sound like her).

She rose, patted down her skirt, and opened the door to find a tiny violinist looking up at her, sketchbook in hand. “Hey there Kate. Want to come in?”

“Oh, yeah, thanks.” The little blonde took a moment to do so, though, as she seemed to be taking in Victoria’s more-metal-than-normal face; but then she entered, taking a seat on Victoria’s bed while Victoria settled back into her computer chair. Kate was quieter than normal, and Victoria was pretty sure it was due to her makeup, but to some degree this pleased her, even if she didn’t want to be scary _to her_. 

“What’re you watching?” She inquired politely, gesturing at the computer screen, where Cordelia was no more than a few seconds away from getting impaled, so Victoria quickly hit pause before responding.

“Just a TV show I like:  _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that. I . . . wasn’t ever allowed to watch it. Because I guess there’s a lot of witchcraft in it, and devil worship.”

Victoria’s eyebrows went up as the corner of her lips turned down, as if to say ‘good point.’ “Well . . . yeah, it does have a lot of that. Demons, though, technically. It’s pretty much the show [Pat Robertson](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pat_Robertson) was talking about when he said feminism is an anti-family movement that makes women kill their husbands, use witchcraft, and become lesbians. Badass, demon-slaying witch lesbians.” Victoria nodded, then followed up, “And that’s pretty much my aesthetic, actually.”

Kate giggled, and seemed to relax a little. She looked much the same as she had this morning playing violin - minimal, serene, and apparently without flaw. Her hair up in a neat bun, she looked essentially as she did every day, as if the burden of the day’s exhaustion simply did not touch her. “My family would take pretty deep offense to that, you know. They love Pat Robertson - at least, my grandma does.”

That was sort of a conversational dead end, so Victoria just swiveled in her chair a little, looking at her knees and Kate’s knees. “What brings you in here today, Katie?”

Kate looked down at her sketchbook. “Well, I know most of your photography is portraiture, and while I generally prefer more comic styles, I’ve been trying to work on my anatomy and realism more, plus just portrait-style in general. I was wondering if you’d look at my sketchbook.”

Victoria was puzzled: “Well . . . I’m more of a photographer but . . . I guess?” Kate seemed nervous, so Victoria offered out her hands. “Let me have a look.”

Kate nodded, handing over the thick sketchbook, and Victoria began to have a look through it. Most of it meant nothing to her, as photos sort of came with realistic interpretations of human anatomy sort of by nature, but she did notice that virtually all of the anatomy sketches were of feminine forms. Further into the sketchbook the drawings went from relatively vague to defined - detailed faces, common artistic poses and the like. Victoria tried to generate comments, but it was difficult: “Here, like, with this one. When you use contrapposto, it’s good to use more dynamic angles and perspectives, generally pretty low to emphasize the perfection of the subject,” she placed her fingertip on the drawn thigh of the woman in the classic position of the [spear bearer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doryphoros), slowly tracing her finger up the figure’s body. “When you draw it too straight onwards it makes it look flat instead of dynamic.” Her voice was more hushed, and she needlessly kept tracing her finger up the body of the sketch, not lifting her finger until she reached its neck.

Victoria heard Kate’s exhale as she looked up from the sketch back to Victoria. “Yeah, I see what you mean.” As their eyes met, Victoria felt her skin begin to flush, and she found herself studying the pale red color of Kate’s lipstick. She breathed deeply, but then disengaged, staring instead at Kate’s sketchbook.   
She flipped a few more pages while barely looking, but then something caught her eye. Although it was in a more comic style than the pieces Kate seemed to be working on, Kate had several sketches of what looked like a female knight with short blonde hair. While she may not have noticed that in that itself, but in the corner of the page she also found a few names written: Valentine, Vivienne, Violet, and, finally, Gertrude, which had been circled. A whole lot of Vs before the sudden change. And Gertrude was the cat girl that Kate had been playing as during Graham’s game.

Victoria tried to pretend that she hadn’t noticed, even though she lingered on that page, turning the last few pages before hitting the blank pages. “Honestly, I don’t think there’s much I can do to help you - you’re out of my league in drawing, and you seem to know everything I do about Greek form and chiaroscuro,” she offered the notebook back to Kate, who grabbed it unnecessarily far up, her fingers brushing against Victoria’s as the two made eye contact, hazel to bright green.  
Victoria had no idea where it was coming from - she’d never really seen Kate in a sexual light, never been appealed by the stiff and understated fashion to sported without fail, never seen the red in Kate’s cheeks as anything other than embarrassment - but her heart raced. She didn’t think of Max, or the circumstances of the past few weeks; her hesitance lasted no more than a moment. As Kate took the sketchbook from her hands, Victoria stood into a slouch, placing her palms on Kate’s cheeks with her fingertips along her jaw and neck, and tilted the tiny blonde’s head up so she could place her lips against her’s. A sense of danger, familiar and yet novel, found its way inside her, and in their second kiss Kate’s lips parted: soft, shocked, but fluid to Victoria’s own.

A knock seemed to reverberate through the room, and Victoria fell back into her chair as if an alarm had just sounded. Kate’s hand darted to her lips, fingers trailing a diagonal line as if Victoria’s lipstick were blood from fresh cuts.

Victoria breathed, sitting up and, for some reason, fixing the cuffs of her shirt. “Um - come in!”

Nathan opened the door, the late afternoon sun brightening his red jacket in harsh slants. He entered swiftly, but slowed when he saw Kate there. “Oh . . . hey there, Marsh.”  
Kate pulled her legs up onto the bed, her fingers now entirely covering her mouth, her eyes wide and fixated on Nathan.

Dread filled Victoria from nowhere. As her eyes locked on her red-clad friend, fear gripped her just like it had in the bathroom yesterday. She straightened her back in her seat, her hands gripping the arms of the chair. 

Victoria didn’t look to Kate as she warned, “Kate, I think you better get out of here.” Although those ought to have been the words of guilt, and they were tainted with it, they sounded like someone alerting a friend that they had just encountered a sleeping bear, that escape was in their best interest.

“Yeah, bye Nathan.” Kate was up and out, clutching her sketchbook to her chest as she escaped.

Something dawned on Victoria in that moment: she was scared of Nathan. But she wasn’t. Her fear was not her own. It was Kate who filled with sharp, airless breaths as she closed the door behind her.  _Her fear was not her own._

Nathan watched as Kate left, staring at the door for several seconds as she disappeared before turning back to Victoria. “What the fuck was that about?”


	4. Tuesday Night (The Eclipse)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan and Victoria mess around in Blackwell following the eclipse. When they meet up with Max, however, things take a dark turn. Victoria makes an oath.

Much like the night before when Nathan had visited Victoria, only reversed, Victoria found herself trembling in Nathan’s arms on her bed as she tried to calm herself. This was not a new exercise, and was probably one of the reasons they were so close - they both pushed themselves so hard, and they both knew that their actions were ultimately unsustainable. Victoria knew she was lucky in both senses - while she ultimately succeeded at nearly everything it seemed she set her mind to, and her meltdowns were ultimately treatable through clinical therapies, Nathan struggled just to keep going under the pressures of school and his family, and when he buckled, he buckled hard. Throughout their high school career, he’d had four episodes where he seemingly broke from reality, and two of them had been since late last school year.

Knowing that the other would not judge them, not question them, not threaten them helped them to feel safe. For Victoria, that was often enough, even if they both knew Nathan needed a lot more just to get to the same level of stability.

He hadn’t even asked her what happened, though they’d been there for well over twenty minutes. When he did finally speak, it was a much easier thing to discuss than these feelings that did not belong. He just claimed, “We should get some pizza.”  
Victoria nodded against his shoulder. “No meat. With garlic.”  
He agreed, seeing as this was hardly a new request of hers.

Unfortunately, delivery people were actually forbidden from entering campus grounds for the safety of students, so they were going to have to go to the parking lot to pick up the pizza. While Nathan called it in, Victoria wiped off her eyes, which become thoroughly ruined, leaving her with the lone smear of red that was her lipstick as opposed to the whole theme. She rounded and cleaned her lips with her finger in the mirror, giving her a softer look.  
Then she texted Max.

 

> **Victoria:** How goes the search?
> 
> **Max:** as it turns out, heroes are an ephemeral population that seem to like to keep their identities hidden. Wouldn’t you know it.  
>  _Received at 7:18pm._

That made Victoria smile.

When Victoria was back to being seated in her chair and Nathan on her bed she just swiveled around a bit. Nathan, again, spoke first, “So, want to go fuck up Blackwell a little while we wait?”

“God yes. I need to get out of this funk. I do not know what’s going on.”

–

Victoria actually did feel considerably better as she was spray painting in the girl’s bathroom. Black, block letters that stated nothing but their words. 

“And here we have a ‘noir belle’, the likes of which Jefferson has never achieved.” The letters dripped a little, but Victoria and Nathan kept a rag for just that purpose. The neat letters read:  **Victoria Chase Rulez!**  : She had no need of subtlety. No one ever got in trouble for the graffiti all over the school unless they did it in plain view, as Justin had been caught doing on multiple occasions. Quite honestly, the school might as well accept the graffiti formally and add a Street Art class. She’d … actually be pretty down for that - text was only so interesting.

Nathan nodded but seemed skeptical. “Well, I’m glad we defaced the property of the mighty motherfucking otters for that.”

“Yeah, well, me too.”

–

Once they had the pizza, they just sat on the planters on the edge of the parking lot on the other side of the pool, legs hanging over the precipice with the pizza box between them.

Nathan was just picking up his third slice as he asked: “Are you and Max all right? You both have been acting a little weird lately.”

Victoria was mid-bite, so she chewed quickly, then covered her mouth with her hand as she said through the food, “We’re fine. We’ve been a bit busy but everything’s all right. Why?”

Nathan looked over at her, still cradling his slice but still not having eaten it at all. “So, how’s she going to feel about you kissing Katie back there?”

Victoria choked now, pounding on her sternum after a few seconds as if that would force the food to go down, but after a few desperate seconds it found its way down her esophagus. “Excusemewhat?”

He smiled, then laughed, slugged Victoria in the shoulder, and took his first bite of pizza. He wasn’t even going to pretend he was unsure about it.

She gave a hard sigh, then took another bite of pizza for the sake of a pause. “It was an  _accident_. She doesn’t need to know - it’s not like, a thing.”  
She munched sadly.  
“Well, I didn’t have a clue she even went that way - seems a little weird, actually. Nice that you guys have your little gay corner of the dorms, though.” Now she punched him back, although quite a bit harder than he had done.

“It’s not like that! I’m not even sure if she  _does_ , and I don’t think of her like that.”

Nathan finally looked puzzled, turning his body towards Victoria after his brief  _‘ow’_  at the hit. “Then what was that?” Clearly referring to the kiss.

Victoria sighed, holding the crust of her pizza in her hand before hitting herself in the forehead twice with the back of her hand. “I don’t know. I kissed her but I have no idea why, exactly. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

He shook his head as if he just did not understand. “Whatever, Vic. I think you guys just have like this, scent thing where you just know you’re both lesbians and it just happens.”

He lay on his side as well as he could on the planter, lowering the slice of pizza from above into his mouth. Victoria quirked an eyebrow at him. “Well, that sounds like bullshit, actually. Whatever it was, it was a fluke - not like, lesbian pheromones.”

He shrugged, taking a bite, and then responding. “Whatever - hey, you don’t see me complaining. If one of you were a dude I might have to take sides but this is out of my depth.”

Victoria finished her crust. “Well, I’m fine with that. I don’t need things to get more complicated, and that was nothing.” Still, Victoria really didn’t know  _why_  she had done it, and that bothered her greatly.

Still, they worked on their pizza until neither one could keep eating, and then they left the remnants sitting on the planter, walking back along it towards the pool.  
“Wanna mess around in the school?”

That sounded fine by her - pointless, stupid, and redundant by senior year. “Yeah, let’s go.”

–

They were both in a pretty giggly mood in the chemistry lab, having just shared some of Nathan’s weed, when Victoria asked a question she thought they could joke about, but they really … didn’t: “So, what’s your dad been riding you about lately? I know it’s got you worked up.”

He sighed, just shaking his head. They sat across from each other on a table in the back of the room. He looked considerably stressed just at the mention of it, although nothing like when he’d come into her room yesterday. “It’s just … I’ve been messing up a lot. A lot, lately. And, no surprise, he doesn’t think I’m going to turn out to be shit. And I’ve done everything he’s ever asked but it isn’t worth a flying fuck to him.”

While this was a pretty common sentiment, Nathan often laughed it off to some degree. This was different. Victoria reached across the table to take Nathan’s hand. “Look,” she said, “your father is an asshole. But you’ve been a great son, and you’ve loved him even though he’s been such an ass. He has no legitimate reason to complain. The only reason you’ve even been having trouble is because he’s been withholding treatmen. This is all his fault, not yours.”

Nathan leaned forward, placing his head into his free hand. “No … he’s an asshole but he’s right. I’ve been fucking up for weeks.”   
Victoria began to worry.  
Nathan continued, exasperated, “I’m just so sick of people trying to control me. I’m not my dad. I can’t manage Pan Estates. I mean, I love photography, and painting, and speed, shit. I’m not organized. I’m not like them.”

Victoria at first kept her face of concern, but then there was a needle of panic in her heart like a guitar note. “Them? Your parents?” The panic eased slightly as she asked that question.

“Uh, yes.” He looked over at his shoulder, staring at the skeleton in the corner of the room. After a few seconds, he suddenly smiled and said, “Huh-holy shit, I have an idea for a great shot. Come over here.”

He stood up from his stool, and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. He ejected one and fit it into the jawbone of the skeleton. Then, he took a second one and put it in his mouth, lighting his own a moment later. “It’s fucking Augustus Waters.” He reached into his pocket to retrieve his phone for a picture, while Victoria giggled.

“Well, while you get your ironic death fetish bullshit out, I’m going to go check on Mr. Jefferson’s room - see if I can’t get a sneak peek of my competition for Thursday.”

He turned on the flash and started snapping shots. “All right, I’ll be here.”

Victoria left the lab and went right across the hall to Jefferson’s, marching right up to his desk and began rifling through his files. He had a surprising number on his desk, so she sat down in his chair and continued her search. She couldn’t find the entries anywhere - although, interestingly enough, she did find a quote from Richard Avedon sticky-noted to his computer monitor that read:  
**“Sometimes I think all of my pictures are just pictures of me”** , which was one of the first things she ever read in a biography from him.  _I wonder what that means about Jefferson_ , she thought. But her generalization came pretty quickly:  _Well, he he’s into young women_.  _Ew … but who isn’t?_    
  
She became frustrated at her fruitless search, and pulled open the top drawer of his desk. Nothing but standard supplies for somebody who spent a lot of time managing papers, magazines, and photos at a desk. So she tried the second, and found a manila envelope that said  **“Everyday Heroes Contest”**. Giddily, she opened it up and removed several files, one for each student - their entry, as well as a selection of photos that he seemed to have gathered from previous assignments the students had turned in.  
But then, underneath the envelope in that same drawer, she noticed something else. A small black cell phone, from the age of slide-to-open keyboards. Curious, she lifted it up, and tapped ‘OK’ to get it to turned on. The light illuminated her face in the darkness.

And that’s when the door opened, and the light turned on.

“Oh! Mr. Jefferson!”

–

Perhaps ten minutes later, Nathan and Victoria were reunited on the sidewalk just off of campus. Nathan had ducked out while Victoria ‘talked to Mark about her portfolio’, and she looked around for him once she escaped Jefferson’s presence.  
“That was a super close call,” Nathan said. He sounded worried, but a little excited.  
Victoria nodded, although she was disappointed that she hadn’t gotten the time to snoop through the folders because she was snooping elsewhere.  
“Well, hey, let’s go for a walk, get away from here for a little bit.”

Victoria felt antsier now than when they started this little adventure, but much, much less anxious. So she was not exactly aiming for it to stop. So she just started walking down the sidewalk.   
It was quiet, not having much other than walking except for when she flipped off the sign that had the [Eye of Providence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Providence) in the parking lot. There just wasn’t that much to talk about, it seemed, but their relationship didn’t always involve a lot of talking - it was more about coping. And the night air helped with that.

Not much talking, at least, until they encountered Max, who was sauntering back towards Blackwell with the defeated gait of an Emperor Penguin. Her Polaroid was in her hand, not the new camera that Victoria had given her, which Victoria was quick to pick up on. Nevertheless, Victoria raised a hand towards the walking figure and yelled out, “Maxine! Hey!”   
Max was way too exhausted to run, so the trio met after a good thirty seconds. Her voice was tired and her skin a dark pink. “Hey sweetie; hey Nathan. What are you guys doing out?

Victoria kept walking towards her, wrapping her arms around her waist and lifting her up until Max was higher than she was. She felt a nervous energy, but it felt nice to hold Max when they’d had so little time together for the past few days. When she plopped Max, the overly-stiff baked cinnamon roll back down, she answered, “Just fucking around, photographing macabre ironies.”

Max jutted her bottom lip out as if this were a totally normal thing to do and answered, “Well, all right. So, guess what? Arcadia has no heroes. I guess that’s a quality of a utopia, right? I finally gave up and just took some shots of police officers who pulled a guy over to search his trunk but … man am I not winning that contest.”

Victoria interjected, “Well, hey, you’ve still got a day! We could do it tomorrow.”

Max looked at Victoria as if she’d forgotten something. “Well … I would, but we’re going to see Chloe tomorrow, remember?”

Victoria swatted her own forehead, then relaxed her hand slowly. “Ahh, right, right. You’re right. Girl’s night.” She leaned in and gave Max a peck on the lips, which did nothing to release her nervousness.

Nathan then offered a hand out slightly in front of his body, as if in some proposal: “Well … why not take it there? Wouldn’t her mom make a good hero?”

The two girls looked over at Nathan, who scratched the back of his head with the hand he’s just offered. Max’s forehead pinched, but then she said slowy, “That’s … actually … a pretty good idea. I could even superimpose Joyce in all of her different work clothes onto one picture …”

Victoria just looked at Nathan curiously, but then she began to stare past him. She notice several dark forms on the sidewalk and in the road moving towards them rapidly, apparently on longboards. While skating gangs or individuals were hardly a rare sight even at this time of night, the weird thing she noticed as they got closer was that they were all wearing something over their face - handkerchiefs, scarfs, and the like. They also all wore dark hoodies … and they were moving straight towards the trio.

Panic gripped Victoria. “RUN!” She cried, and they all immediately turned to sprint away from the boarders, but they just weren’t as fast.

“Grab the girls!” One of hooded figures yelled as they approached, just as he made contact with Nathan, wrapping his arms around his body and falling off his board, tackling Nathan into the concrete.

Max and Victoria screamed as Nathan face planted with the figure on top of him, but soon two of the skaters were upon them, and Victoria watched as Max was restrained within seconds. The one that was coming for Victoria grabbed her wrist, but she was more prepared - she spun around, and immediately dug her shin into her assailant’s genitals. The figure moaned a boyish sound of pain, not that Victoria had really expected anything different. She reached down as he doubled over, grabbing the side of his face and digging her nails into his face as she tried to shove his head into the wall that separated the road from the houses on the other side, but he held his ground. Incapable of anything more intricate, the boy just tackled her, forcing Victoria to the ground.  
The boy on top of Max shouted: “Stop fighting us! We’re not here for you!”

And that … rapidly dawned on Victoria as being true. She was just held in place, but she could hear hard impacts from somewhere in front of her, followed by whimpers of pain. A few more of the sounds, and she realized that it was the sound of of a skateboard being smashed into someone’s back. Nathan was crying, but somebody was yelling over him:   
“You think you can hurt people and no one will do anything about it? You think you can touch Dana you fuck!? Fuck you psycho! Fuck you!”  
“Dude, stop! He gets it. Let’s get the fuck out of here before someone shows up. Now!”

Rage coursed through Victoria’s veins unlike anything she’d ever felt. The boy on top of Victoria weakened his grip, and she shoved him off with extraordinary force, nearly throwing him into the street. He grabbed his board, as did the rest, and they were off, out of Victoria’s power within moments. When she was up and helped Max up, she noticed several terrible things about the scene with Nathan:  
He was bleeding from the mouth, but it was clear that he’d taken most of the swings to his body- he clutched his stomach, whimpering in an inflexible imitation of the fetal position.  
A silvery gun sat just outside of his grasp on the concrete.  
The skaters were making their way back the same way that Victoria and Nathan had come.

Max had her phone out in a moment.   
Nathan whimpered, “Please … don’t call the police. My dad … he’ll kill me. Please don’t.”  
Frantic, Max looked to Victoria to guidance, and then Victoria looked to Nathan. She said, “I’m sorry Nate, but we don’t have a choice.”

–

Nathan was being loaded into an ambulance before the police arrived. Perhaps in poor taste, Max retrieved her Polaroid from the ground and took a shot of the EMTs as they took him, the lights casting a light that only added to the fear of the moment.  
Max looked mostly like she was in shock, but the rage in Victoria had only become distilled.  
“I’ll fucking kill them.”


	5. Wednesday Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Max and Victoria recover from the stresses of last night, they are greeted by two kind faces with stories to tell: Dana Ward and Kate Marsh. What these two reveal leads Max and Victoria to confront their previous assumptions. Victoria tells Max about the kiss.

It was three in the morning and Max and Victoria were just arriving back at Blackwell. There was a cold chill to everything as they stepped out of the back of the police vehicle of Officer Berry. He said something that neither of them bothered to hear, and then they closed the back door of his car.

Max fell into Victoria’s arms, who held her close and began to pet her hair.

They were too exhausted for proper fear, but Max kept a clear enough head to say, “You’re sleeping with me tonight. Everyone knows who you are.” Victoria agreed, and the two held each other close as they crossed the campus back towards their dorms.

They had just given their statements on what happened earlier that night. The police were in an impressive uproar about the whole incident - Victoria had to wonder how many of the police officers had, politely, been told to keep Nathan out of trouble throughout their careers. Meanwhile, Nathan had been taken to the hospital, and the only news they had about him was that he was apparently ‘fine’. The police had tried to get in contact with Principal Wells, but to no avail.

As they entered the dorm’s quad, they immediately noticed something out of place. Principal Wells was passed out on the steps of his home on the campus, a mostly-empty of whiskey sitting on the steps in front of him. The two tiptoed past him, but Victoria couldn’t help but mutter, “Useless asshole,” as they passed.

\--

The two had decided not to set any alarms - they weren’t going to try and go to school the following day. They just lay together, both still fully clothed, tightly wound to accommodate themselves on Max’s small bed. That was, until about 8:40am, when there was a loud, frantic knocking on Max’s door.  
The muffled voice came, “Max? Max are you here? Is everything okay?”

Victoria was a heavy sleeper, so Max had rolled herself out of bed and stood up by the time Victoria even opened her eyes, alert though she became of the sound. The knocking continued until Max opened up the door.

“Oh thank god, Max, you’re okay!” Dana was on the other side of the door, and she lunged forward, holding Max tightly against her. “I heard about what happened! Are you all right?”  
“Yeah, Dana, we’re okay. Who told you about what happened?”

Dana had a similar style day by day, and today did not vary from it - a shoulder-baring brown shirt with a pansy drawn in polychromatic metallics and skinny jeans. She seemed to be very concerned, even knowing that Max was okay and, now that she was sitting up, Victoria was too. “Juliet told me - Zachary texted her about it this morning. I’m so glad you’re both okay. Blackwell is starting to feel really unsafe lately.”

Max beckoned for Dana to come in and sat down next to Victoria, letting Dana take the sofa. While it was much later in the day than when Max generally woke up, she was exhausted, and knew she would have to go back to bed. But then Max read a little more into what she had just said.

“Why? This didn’t happen at Blackwell . . . what’s making you feel unsafe?”

Dana rubbed back and forth on her own legs, as if trying to warm them up. “Well . . . it has to do with Nathan, so I’m worried.”

Victoria finally seemed to focus - “Wait, what? What about Nathan?”

Max fixed her eyes on Dana, who wasn’t meeting their eyes, instead sort of looking around at the dense clutter of Max’s room. “So, um, like last week, Juliet and I went out for a drink because Logan and I were having some issues. They don’t card or anything, and I think they like having us because of all the guys who stay longer or buy us drinks. It’s just like, free drinks, you know. Well, Nathan was there, so we chilled out with him for a bit. Julie went home after a while because she didn’t want to get too hammered but I was having a pretty hard time so I . . . stayed. I’m not sure when, exactly . . .” she trailed off, and brought her arms up from her legs to wrap around her own waist.  
“Well, I blacked out, I think. Well, I know I did. But when I woke up, I was in . . . uh . . .” she took a deep breath, and her fingers clenched together, “Nathan’s . . . room. Which wouldn’t be too weird but he . . . he was filming me. He was just watching me wake up, camera out but not saying anything. I was so freaked out but for some reason I couldn’t seem to scream or talk or anything, so I just . . . I don’t know, but I got outside, and he didn’t try and follow me or anything.”

\--

Max’s hand covered her mouth in horror, but Victoria’s eyes narrowed, trying to make contact with Dana’s. When Dana finally could not resist to make contact with her boring stare anymore, Victoria immediately regretted her - she immediately began to feel detached from the situation, but even moreso, she felt fear again. But it wasn’t just fear, she realized. It was the fear of being powerless.  
“He . . . why would he do that?” Victoria asked, but she dropped her eyes from Dana. There was no way Dana was lying. Dana had no agenda against Nathan. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Max spoke again, bringing them back to their point, “But what does that have to do with what happened with us last night? Other than . . . Nathan.”

Dana stared over at Max’s  _Winger and the Cow_  poster, her eyes tearing up a little, then she squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head. “I don’t know! Maybe he’s done this to other people and somebody found out. I didn’t want him to get hurt, I just don’t know what’s going on.”

Victoria latched onto just a few select words: “Other people? Nathan’s not some fucking serial rapist. I don’t know what happened with you but this is not normal for him.” Nevertheless, Victoria finally let herself break posture, and she began to hold herself with her arms, much like Dana was doing. Max rubbed Victoria’s back with her fingers.

Max tried to reassure Dana, “We believe you, Dana, everything’s just . . . really confusing right now. But we’ll figure it out, I promise.”

Nevertheless, Dana sensed the hostility, and she stood up. “Okay . . . yeah. Just, take care you two. We should all try and keep an eye on each other. Bye, guys.”

“Bye, Dana.”

\--

The second time there was a knock on the door, it was about ten minutes into lunch hour, and it sounded much less frantic than Dana had. The two were awake but still not out of bed, and they just sat up in response to the knock.

“Come in,” Max called, and Kate Marsh entered.

Kate looked a bit different today, if only in the small margins permitted by somebody who presented themselves so conservatively. She wore a violet coat over a white shirt tucked into a black, elastic skirt, with plain black stockings covering her legs. It appeared she was wearing no makeup whatsoever, which, while not far off from normal, in itself was unheard of after 7:30.

“I heard about what happened in Algebra. Mr. Jefferson isn’t at school today and I think his lab might be cancelled - I think he went to see Nathan. Are you both okay?”

Victoria gestured first at Max, and then herself, as if to demonstrate their lack of injury. “We’re okay, although I think one of the guys who attacked us probably can’t move today. I hear Nathan’s stable, just a few broken ribs. It could have been worse . . .” Victoria’s eyes drifted, and she thought about the gun, wrapped in Victoria’s spray paint rag, currently hidden in one of Max’s drawers.  _It could have been a lot worse,_  she thought.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry.” Her tone was so much different than Dana’s. Once Dana knew Max and Victoria was okay, her fear had become aimed at herself, protecting herself, which was perfectly reasonable, but it was clear that Kate cared more that Max and Victoria were safe, and she even seemed relieved that Nathan was okay. It was so impressive how she was always so concerned for everyone’s welfare, even though until recently no one had acted concerned for hers. “Who was it that attacked you?”

Max shook her head. “We have no idea. They were all wearing masks, and they rode skateboards, no car for a plate. It all happened so fast. But, hey, if we hear about somebody having their balls obliterated, at least we’ll have found one of them.” Something about that phrase filled Victoria with satisfaction, even if it had ultimately been fruitless.

Kate was quiet, just with an “Oh my goodness . . .” to a situation for which she obviously had no solution.  
But there was something in that resigned posture that Victoria recognized, and she spoke up, deadpan, trying to keep sounds of accusation or anger out of her voice: “Kate . . . was it Nathan who dosed you at the party?”

Kate’s eyes went wide in shock as they found Victoria’s. “N-no, I told you, I don’t remember!” Her voice became shrill, but there was something behind that denial. And Victoria was ready for it this time - confused fear. The fear of being helpless.  
Max looked at Victoria, shocked, if not to the same degree as Kate, but Victoria kept her eyes locked on Kate. “You do, somewhat. You think it was Nathan.”

Kate sat in silence, but tears began to stream down her face. She didn’t break eye contact with Victoria, who stood up, then fell to her knees in front of Kate. "Fuck . . . fuck,” Victoria murmured, which finally made Kate look away, wiping away her tears. Victoria reached up, grasping Kate’s hands and holding them both in hers. “I believe you, Kate. I don’t know what’s going on but I believe you.”

There was a tense silence, and whatever was communicated between them, Max seemed not to understand. Nevertheless, she was the first one to speak. She said softly, “I think we should stick together from now on. I don’t feel safe.”  
That, at least, was something they could understand. There were too many people preyed upon at Blackwell.

A few minutes later, Max had something more to say; “Kate, we’re going to my friend’s house later today, Chloe. I think you should come with us.”

Kate nodded her head, despite having virtually no context by which to answer this. “Okay, Max. I will.”

\--

At the end of the hour, Kate got a text saying that Jefferson was, in fact, going to be at Photography Lab today, so she left for her last two classes. The two decided that they needed to get dressed now that it was 1pm, so Max went first, what with them being in her room. But that was when she brought up a topic that Victoria imagined would have been her territory, although she hadn’t thought about it for almost a day: “I feel like we should talk about Kate.”

Victoria was a little confused, and didn’t want to seem overly relieved that she wasn’t the one who said it, so she asked, “Talk about what?”

Max evaded her eyes, looking for a final coat, cardigan, or hoodie to wear. “I think . . . that I might like her.” Her eyes flashed over to Victoria to gauge the reaction of her girlfriend through her bright green eyes. There was nervousness there, but there was also, adoration, and Victoria could feel it too. She immediately wanted to place it as how she was feeling for Max, but she realized she hadn’t been feeling it just seconds ago - these were  _not_  her feelings.

Vic played with the inside of her mouth, swallowing and biting her cheek, tongue moving around as she found the way to articulate. “Well,” she started. “I sort of . . . kissed her yesterday. By accident.”

Today was nothing but surprises. Max turned her full body towards Victoria now, just holding a shirt hanger in her hands but not moving towards her. “Well that’s . . . by accident?”

Victoria thought back on it. She knew it hadn’t been on accident - it’s not like they had just been so close together that a tiny flash of attraction pushed their instincts . . . Victoria had nearly lunged into it. But it didn’t make sense to her. “I mean . . . I didn’t mean to. It just sort of happened. I don’t know how, we were just looking at her sketches.” Victoria scratched her head, now filled with confusion. “You like her?”

Max was also awfully confused now. “Well, I think so. I feel . . . better around her. And like I have to protect her.”

Victoria nodded, running a hand through her hair, then cradling her head with that hand. “Shit. What does this mean? I don’t even know how I feel, but I think I know how she feels.”

Max quirked her head to the side and swiped a finger along her forehead, pushing her hair to the side. She finally approached Victoria, sitting on the bed beside her while putting the shirt in her lap. “What do you mean?”

Victoria didn’t want to try and explain the confusing rush of emotions that came every time she made eye contact with Kate. There was no reasonable way to explain it. So she just said, “Well, like . . . you know that character she played for D&D? That cat paladin, Gertrude? Well . . . she was originally designed as  _me_ , I think. And like, she worshiped that goddess of lovers and everything right? I saw Kate’s drawings of her and they all looked just like me. Until she made her a cat, I guess.”

Max bit her lip and smiled, but then she just started laughing. “Oh my lord! You think I’m ridiculous when I think Mr. Jefferson’s pissed about my photo but then YOU kiss Kate because you’re interpreting her feelings from a d&d character!”

Victoria jabbed her in the shoulder then, but Max just kept laughing. “Oh, come on! Like, I could tell. Whatever.” She folded her arms, pouting at being laughed at.

“Oh come on, Tori. Look, I believe you - I called it, after all. But, we both have feelings for Kate. We both have chemistry with her - one of us more than the other, apparently - so what does that mean for us?”

Victoria looked down, arms still folded but pouting less, staring at that hideously Pop meme rug that Max insisted cover 1/2 of the floorspace. “I don’t know,” she claimed, and they were quiet for a moment.   
But then she uncrossed her arms, sat up, and crossed her legs on Max’s bed, looking straight at her girlfriend. She traced the side of Max’s face with a finger, then held her cheek gently with the tips of her fingers. She leaned forward, kissing the brunette gently and slowly, letting them melt into their kiss, breathing deeply as their kiss just continued, soft but unreserved, letting the moment just pass by.  
When they broke apart, Victoria kept her hand on Max’s face. “I love you, Maxine Caulfield,” she whispered, eyes barely open because their faces were so close. “This can’t hurt that. I love you. Whatever we feel for Kate, we can feel that - it’s something we have in common. It can make us stronger.  
  


Max bit her lip as she looked at Victoria’s bright eyes. “Do you mean resisting Kate, or wanting her?”  
Victoria smirked, then laughed almost silently. “I haven’t figured that out yet. But we’ll figure it out together.”

They held each other tightly. “I love you, Victoria Chase.” Max patted her on the back. “Now let’s go get you dressed up for Girls’ Night . . . and  _Kate_ ,” she teased.

As they released their hug, giggling at that, Victoria pushed Max down so she was lying flat on the bed. She drew herself up over Max, hovering over her face. “Hey, you never know. Maybe Chloe goes that way too. It could be a real girls’ night.” Grim as all of the circumstances were, they laughed, and Max pulled her beautiful, wonderful girlfriend down into a kiss.


	6. Two Whales Wednesdays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio decide to start sticking together, so they head to Two Whales. However, while there, they discover the bodies of several beached whales. Both Max and Victoria's powers achieve new heights, stunning them as they discover the fate that awaits Arcadia bay. Victoria discovers a prophecy.

  
Max and Victoria decided to ambush Mr. Jefferson during fourth period, as they knew he did not teach anything during that time, but it was often when he was managing things to do with the class - he really liked to avoid taking work home with him, as he mentioned.  
Well, ambush is an unfair word, but he did seem pretty startled when Max entered the classroom, closely trailed by her girlfriend.

“Ah, Miss Caulfield. Here I as getting worried I’d leave today without your photo.” The duo stood in front of his desk, and for some reason this seemed to make him uncomfortable, because he stood as they approached him. He stood perhaps an inch taller than Victoria, but he seemed to have a thing for never being lower than his students.

Max started to fish through her bag for her Polaroid folder, and he kept talking while she fished through it. “Also, I heard you two were also involved in the attack last night. How are you feeling?”

Max did not feel like reliving it while she was trying to get excited and positive for her time with Chloe. She pulled out the picture of the EMTs and handed it to Jefferson gracelessly. “This should explain it.”

He held the photo for a moment, staring at it with a measure of concern and pity, then nodded. “I see. Our paramedics really are everyday heroes, and thankless ones at that. I’m so sorry that you had to be in these circumstances to take the shot, even though I admire your resourcefulness.” He looked first at Max, obviously, because he was talking to her while ignoring Victoria as he was wont to do, but then his eyes flickered over to the other girl who had, you know, been equally involved in this event and had no way tried to use it to her ultimate benefit at the situational expense of a friend with broken ribs. Nevertheless, Jefferson was a teacher who tried to make eye contact with everyone (nearly), and so his eyes came to meet Victoria’s.  
And she felt nothing. Nothing different, anyway. Just the same mixture of excitement, of concern, and of envy at Max’s attention.

\--

As Victoria pulled into the parking lot of the Two Whales Diner with Kate and Max as passengers, she became aware of something very, very wrong on the beach. Nevertheless, Kate was the first one to say something - “Oh my goodness, are those beached whales?”  
Victoria’s car came to a rather sudden stop. Frank’s trailer was pulled into the corner of the lot, and he sat out on his lawn chair interior of the road.

“Oh my lord, I think she’s right.”  
Victoria said nothing, but she unbuckled her seat belt and was out in a flash, closely followed by Max and Kate. They followed her silently, even as she jaywalked across the street directly in front of a diner frequently filled with cops, until they were on the beach. Three whales lay on the beach, their drying skin baking in the sun with their mouths hanging open. Insects swarmed their corpses, though there hadn’t been nearly enough time for maggot growth to set in.

“What could have happened to them?” Kate was clutching her cross, standing rigidly straight.  
Max also hesitated as they reached the beach, as if to tread on it would be to walk over graves. “I have no idea . . . this happens sometimes but not like this, not without some disaster.”

Victoria only hesitated for a moment, though, before she stepped onto the beach, heading straight towards the corpses. There was no smell of rot to them yet, only the smell of sea weed, as if the odor of the ocean were amplified. When she became close to them, though, she fell to her knees as a wave of something totally foreign hit her. She held herself up on her palms but she felt like she was having a heart attack. Within seconds, she was coughing, and moments later, she vomited into the sand.

It took her a moment to even realize that what was happening was not some severe attack on her body. It was a feeling, and emotion prompting intense physiological response. But whatever this feeling was, it was unlike anything she’d ever felt.  
Max was upon her in moments, and Kate trailed not far behind. “Tori, Tori, are you okay?”  
Victoria sat again upon her knees, wiping her mouth with her hand. “They’re in so much pain,” she said, or tried to say - the words would barely issue from her mouth for lack of air.  
“Who? The whales? What’s going on?”

Three citizens looked on at the girls, although they were too far off to overhear anything. The first was the withered old woman from the diner the day before. The second was a trucker who had been standing outside the diner already. The third was Frank, who heard them when they arrived.

“Not these whales . . . they’re dead. But they’re mourning.” Victoria started to take deep breaths, but they wheezed. “But however they mourn, it’s not for people to feel.”

Max seemed a little panicked, “Tori, I don’t know what you’re saying. What are you talking about?”

Kate spoke up, quietly, almost reverently: “Whales, a lot of species at least, have more complex emotions than humans are capable of. In the wild their interconnectedness is . . . well, impossible to describe. I think Victoria is saying she can feel their pain.”

Max was bewildered, but she didn’t try and correct Kate, who sat on her knees beside Victoria despite being in tights ill-suited for sandy conditions. Kate removed her cross from her neck and held it in between clasped hands. Max became aware she was praying, lips moving silently, so she leaned down behind Victoria, and tried to rub her shoulders to comfort her.  
Victoria said quietly, “Just . . . let me do my breathing. I think this is something I have to feel.”

This, understandably, all had Max very worried, but she backed off, and  began to look out at the ocean.

Victoria took deep breaths, and within each breath she felt like the confused aspect of what she was experiencing fell away. While that made it easier to breathe, she wasn’t sure what was replacing it was better. She came to recognize a feeling much like what she’d felt from Kate or Dana earlier, only vast, vast and black. It was doom. She had no other word for it. It was the hand of Atropos.

In the sea there was emptiness and fear, but there was also a warmth and connection she did not know how to describe, but that she could feel. And here on the beach, she could feel it too, she could feel it in her lungs and in her mouth as she exhaled. It was the medium of space, but it no longer felt like distance. Instead, she felt like the air she breathed was her protection, that it protected Kate, and it protected Max. She didn’t know what she was experiencing, but she was experiencing doom, and yet her fear was falling away.

\--

Victoria blinked back to consciousness, Kate Marsh hovering over her, Kate’s cross burrowed into her shoulder. “Victoria? Are you okay.”  
Max stood over both of them, a look of concern and, moreover, confusion in her eyes. But Victoria could see that . . . but she wasn’t feeling it. And that made her relieved.  
“I am. I’m okay . . . seriously, I’m okay.” She sat up, wiping sand off of her skirt and blouse.

Max and Kate each reached out a hand, and pulled Victoria back to her feet. She felt a little unsteady, but after a few seconds she could stand just fine on her own.  
“Max,” she said, “Do me a favor. Document the whales. The beach. Everything. Please.”

Max just nodded, too confused to try and question Victoria right now. She’d never seen one, exactly, but she wondered if this was what Nathan’s episodes was like - Victoria had always said that Nathan stopped making much sense during them, that certain forms of stimulation had to be decreased while others were increased. For now, she just figured clear instructions were the best she could work with.

She pulled out her camera, and began to take pictures of the whales. But as she panned her view from one side of them to the other, she saw something that made no sense. She saw a vast column of water in the ocean, whirling up towards the sky, passing the peninsula of the light house. “Oh my lord . . .” she said quietly, then looking away from her viewfinder to stare out over the ocean.   
Nothing. The beach during the day. Sunny. Hot. Blue.

She looked back through her viewfinder, and the storm re-appeared. “Guys,” she said, much louder this time. They were both instantly attentive. “I’m seeing something that isn’t there. Not, like, a hallucination. I . . .”

Kate, again, had something unexpected, but helpful to say. “Are you having a vision?”  
Victoria’s eyes went wide, completely blown away by whatever was happening.

“I don’t know! I don’t know what’s going on!” She stepped back, and as she did, the camera fell onto the sand with a sad thump. Luckily, it was uninjured, but Victoria was quick to retrieve it. She said nothing about its maltreatment, but instead lifted it to her eyes, staring out over the ocean.

“I don’t . . . see anything Max.” She kept looking for a moment, but then just shook her hand, and handed it back to Max.

Max just held it, staring at the camera for a moment. “This isn’t the first time this has happened. Ever since you gave me this camera I’ve been seeing weird things through it.” She raised the camera once again, and still, the storm was there, swirling, marching onward towards Arcadia Bay. “If this storm is real . . . it’ll destroy Arcadia Bay. All of it.”

Kate stared at Max, and then Victoria, and then finally out at the ocean. She had not let go of her cross. “I think there may be spirits with us right now,” she said. And neither of the two contradicted her.

\--

As they approached the diner, Frank met them near the door on the right. “Hey there love birds, who’s the new girl?” He gestured at Kate.  
There were all understandably tense, but Max was still quick to respond, “This is Kate. We’ve been seeing some . . . weird shit, so we’ve been sticking together.”

Frank started to say something sarcastic, but then, staring out at the ocean, the spiral of ants currently devouring the corpse of a bird off to his left, and knowing what he knew, he just said, “That’s . . . probably smart. You guys haven’t been sticking with Nathan though, have you?”

Victoria spoke up this time, “No, not since last night, why?”

He shrugged, revealing a thick blue bracelet on his wrist. “Nothing, really, I just think . . . you guys should stay clear of him for a little while. I think he might be caught up in something and it’ll need a little straightening out. Nothing to worry about.”

Max crossed her arms. Frank was right, but she didn’t like the way he was going about it. “Well, that won’t be hard - he ended up in the hospital last night.”

“Jesus, what, really? What happened?”

Victoria’s jaw turned up a little bit in a weird form of resistance. “We were jumped last night. But they weren’t out for us - they were after Nathan. And they got him. Bad.”

Frank thought on that for a bit. “Well . . . that makes sense.”

For some reason, Victoria found that infuriating, as if Nathan deserved it. She couldn’t see someone like she saw Nathan last night and pretend that they deserved it, nevermind her closest friend: “What the fuck are you talking about? What are you hiding from us?”

Kate was scared by this confrontation, and took a step back. Frank seemed to pick up on this.

“Hey now, blondie, I’m not going to hurt you. But I also ain’t gonna tell you shit. Just stay out of my way - and try and stay away from the Prescotts while you’re at it.” With this, he pushed his way past them.

This fractured their attention. Victoria fumed, Kate was scared and confused, and Max . . . noticed the ant spiral for the first time.

“I’m . . . gonna check that out,” she said, indicating the curious spiral. “I’ll be right there.” As if nothing had just happened, she trotted over to the carrion dance.

“Come on, Kate, let’s get a table.” Victoria took Kate by the hand, and all but pulled her into the diner to break her paralysis. Inside, she said, “Here, just get us a table for three. I just need to clean out my mouth.”

\--

Inside the bathroom, Victoria noticed nothing until she had spat out as much of the disgusting, lingering taste of bile as possible. But then she became aware of a new feature of the diner stalls - and my god was it imposing.   
Written in ink or paint, she couldn’t entirely tell which, were the following words.

“The 7th sign:   
The sea and sky  
Will turn black  
And living things  
Die because of it”

“That . . . can’t be good.” But Victoria did not feel as if she learned anything new - she just found the words.


	7. Girls' Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Max, Victoria, and Kate go to see Chloe, things are a little tense at first. Max finds her world rapidly unraveling during a special conversation in the bathroom.

“Why hey there guys, come on in. We weren’t sure when you’d be over.” William gestured for everyone to come inside, and the line of girls made their way into the living room. Clearly, there had been some excitement about this little get-together, because things in the house had been moved since last time Max was there. Most notably, the HDTV had been swapped into the living room, with the tiny television sitting unplugged on the ground. Somehow William had even been able to set up a mount for it since Monday. Two chairs had been set up next to the couch, as if they were unsure how many people would be coming.

Chloe sat in her chair next to the table and smiled as Max entered.  
“Hey Chloe,” she said, stopping pretty much as soon as she was actually in the room. Her hands clutched her shoulder strap  
“Hey Max.” They were both pretty sedate in this greeting, not wanting to acknowledge how they left things on Sunday. Nevertheless, social custom forced Max to speak: “This is my girlfriend Victoria and my friend Kate.”

William looked a little shocked, looking between Victoria and Max and then to Chloe, as if to say _‘did you know about this?’_ , which made Chloe giggle a little.

“Well, hey guys. I’m Chloe, as you might have guessed. Are either of you fans of cyberpunk?”

Kate looked pretty immediately confused, while Victoria’s eyes went a little wide. These were the opening words of a soulmate.

“... it’s, ah, a genre focusing on the extreme inequality caused by capitalism in a society usually dictated by corporate power. Like ours, but with more motorcycles. I was just thinking we could watch District 9 if that sounded cool.”

Victoria had already seen it. Three times. “Oh, yeah, I heard about that one,” she said, acting super casual.   
Kate was still pretty confused. “I, ah, just don’t watch a lot of TV. Cyberpunk sure sounds cool though.”

William felt immensely relieved that these girls didn’t seem to demonstrate his daughter’s fascination for a subgenre that sounded a lot like anarchy to him, although sometimes he did enjoy when she pointed out that a megacorporation in the movie represented a real company - it made him feel less like it was just action-packed garbage.  
“Well, you girls hungry? I’m making lasagna!” Apparently, he really looks forward to making lasagna.

“Oh, no thanks William,” Max said, “We just ate. Here, let me set up the movie.” It was tense, and everyone could feel it. They needed a distraction.

\--

About thirty minutes into the movie, Max felt relaxed enough that she could observe those around her better. She and Victoria occupied the couch while Chloe’s wheelchair sat to the left of them and slightly forward, so that William could leave water and soda on the coffee table for easy access for Chloe. They were comfortable. And while that let Max look around, it didn’t keep her from being tense.  
It wasn’t the euthanasia request, either. It was bringing Kate and Victoria so physically close to a distant part of her life that was going to end. It was inviting them too close to her grief.

But still . . . this might be one of the last times Max got to see Chloe in her home, without the presence of death. She pulled her camera from her messenger bag at her feet and aimed it at Chloe. This time, when she saw something that could not be there, she did not freak out.  
She saw Chloe, her best friend, with a sleeve of beautiful tattoos down her right arm. They led like a trail of flowers to a head of blue hair, just like she’d wanted for years. Her gown was not that of someone who needed frequent care - it was a tank top and skinny jeans. Max just stared at Chloe through the view finder for a moment, tears coming to her eyes.  
Chloe finally looked at her and said, “Hey now, Max - radiant as I am, maybe you should spread the photo love? Yeah?”

Max snapped a shot, noticing that the shot came out exactly as it should - with Chloe paralyzed, her skin bare, hair the faded blonde of what it had used to be.

Then Max turned the camera around and leaned up against Victoria. Victoria held her hands in front of her face. “Oh, come on, Max, you know I hate selfies, no.” Max just smirked, trying to frame them nicely, but Kate was out of her seat in a flash, photobombing her way over Victoria’s torso so Victoria’s hidden-by-hands face would still be visible.   
Max snapped the shot. Victoria lowered her hands as Kate backed off, and Victoria emitted a, “Gah, you goon,” which was unclearly directed at Max or Kate.

Still, Max wanted to distance herself while she tried to understand what she just saw, nevermind how she was seeing it. “I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be right back.”

\--

It seemed to be a tradition of Max’s to splash water on her face virtually every time she entered a bathroom, and this was no different. After she washed her hands she also tried to cool her face, drying her hands partially by running them through her hair to help it stay in place. She watched herself in the mirror for a moment, recognizing how many times the strange things she’d seen had involved her being in a bathroom.

Whether she intended it or not, she was rewarded. After a few seconds, she noticed a blur appear in the mirror, and after a few seconds, there was a clear reflection of a bluejay on the shower sill behind her. She breathed deeply. “You’re not real,” she said.

And then, it was her own reflection that blurred, although her face stayed stationary. Instead, it was her clothes that morphed, and she found herself staring at a version of herself that was clad in a red-black plaid material, ripped just enough to suggest use without disarray. She wore layered shirts, much like what she’d just seen from the image of Chloe in her camera.  
“I don’t understand,” she said, genuinely frightened. She knew little of the subject, but she was quickly convinced that this was what hallucinations must seem like.

Then, the image in the mirror moved. It - her, the her in the mirror - leaned down, grasping the counter in front of the mirror. And then, it spoke, “No, you don’t yet.”

She was agape. Her image was speaking to her. She looked to either side of her, as if somebody might be lurking nearby. She returned her gaze to her reflection, which, this time, hadn’t disappeared for her looking away. “You can’t be real,” she protested. She covered her mouth with her hand, fingers like claws that dug into her cheek. But she didn’t believe her own words.

The Max in the mirror blinked. “And why not? You’re real because of me, and I’m real because of you.” She looked offended, but she spoke softly, timidly, as if worried that Max would not like her.

“What do you mean? Who are you? How are we talking?” Max . . . if she was having a hallucination, was rapidly beginning to believe it. It’s just hard not to trust oneself.

“I’m you, Max. Well, I’m a lot like you. We’re talking because we’re both in Chloe’s bathroom right now. We pass each other often enough, but you always look away.”

Max . . . decided to indulge this. Everything was too strange to ignore right now. Perhaps her subconscious just needed to work something out, but she would take any help she could get right now. “So you’re me. Almost. But how can we exist  _because_  of each other? That doesn’t make any sense.”

The Max on the Other Side smirked. “I suppose it doesn’t. Didn’t Warren send you any articles about Quantum Theory? It’s helped me a lot.”

Max thought that was a weird thing for her brain to bring up. “Warren? Warren Grahmn? We’ve only ever talked about d&d and science fiction, never quantum theory. Does he know what’s going on?”

“Not exactly - to be honest, I don’t think anyone does. But, as I understand it - you are Max, and I am Max. We became different people at some point. But for some reason, you can see me. We are both real, and we both have a mission. We both want to stop the storm.”

Max’s eyes went wide, and she inhaled sharply. “You mean the storm is real?”

The Other Max nodded. “Yes. It’ll be here Friday. And I don’t think we’ll live if we don’t stop it.”

Max was so confused - “But it’s a storm! How can we stop it?”

Other Max seemed to think on that for a while. “I don’t know. But I think Rachel is leading us along. And it all seems to come back to the Prescotts. Chloe and I are investigating Nathan right now.”

That seemed like an odd pair for this adventure: “You and Chloe? How did she get involved in this? And are you talking about Rachel Amber?”

Other Max nodded. “Chloe was shot by Nathan Prescott, but I brought her back. We know he drugged her and Kate Marsh, and that he was the only other dealer that we know of that worked for Frank alongside Rachel.”

“But Chloe . . . is just a girl in a wheel chair to him - he’s never even met her; how could he have drugged her?” Still, being told so confidently from her own self that Nathan drugged Chloe and Kate was damning for her.

The face on the Other Max furrowed as concern coated her face. “Chloe’s . . . in a wheelchair? What happened?”

Max bit her lip in concern. “She was in an accident. She snapped her spine. She hasn’t walked in more than three years.”

Other Max was now the one to cover her mouth in shock. She covered her body with her arms. “Oh my lord . . . the universe has it out for her. Does that mean . . . what happened with her and Rachel?”

Max was back to being confused. “Rachel? They . . . never met. I only know Rachel as Frank’s ex - and I know she was really popular at school. Nobody’s seen her for six months. Does that mean that Chloe is okay where you are?”

Other Max nodded. “Yeah. She’s in the next room, looking through Frank’s logbook, seeing if she can find out when and how Nathan drugged Kate. It’s encrypted, though - I don’t think we’ll get far tonight.”

Max nodded back to herself. That meant that Chloe, somewhere, was safe. She wasn’t going to die. That was probably the tattoo’d Chloe she had seen. The storm. Herself in a shirt she didn’t own - two, now. It was all this place. She looked up. Max focused on regrouping how she could, but she became curious about this world she was seeing: “How is Victoria where you are?”

This seemed to confuse the Other Max. “She . . . she was crying for a while, but then that got old for her I guess and she tried to blackmail Jefferson. Just being the same old callous bitch. Why?”

That hurt Max. “That’s so mean, Max.” It felt so strange to say her own name like that. “Why was she crying?”

Other Max stared at Max as if she were an idiot for a moment. “Because Kate committed suicide yesterday, Max.”

 _Denial._  “No way . . . no way. She wouldn’t - that’s not like her at all.” Max clenched her teeth as a knot formed in her throat, but she knew she had to gain more information, too. “Were they . . . together? Or just close?”

Other Max was still confused, and talking about Kate’s suicide clearly disturbed her. “Together? Victoria is one of the people who put Kate on that roof. She bullied her, spread a video of Kate at school, and just watched while me and David tried to save her.”

Max just held her mouth as she began to cry, knowing she couldn’t be too loud or someone would come check on her. “No . . . no. Victoria and I promised to protect her. Victoria doesn’t want to be that person anymore.”

Other Max steeled her gaze. “The Victoria here would not be your friend. She is cruel. She bullied me, she bullied Mr. Jefferson, and she bullied Kate. Nevermind how much she hates Rachel Amber - I wouldn’t be surprised if she was involved in whatever Nathan is doing.”

Max continued to cry quietly for a moment, and the Max in the Mirror looked towards the door on her side. She spoke, but Max could not hear the words she said until she looked back at Max. “Chloe is calling for me - I’ve got to go. Max, you have got to protect Chloe, okay? More than anything, you have to keep her safe. And find the Dark Room - I think that is where Rachel is. Nathan is your best lead. And if, like you say, Kate is still alive . . . tell her I’m so sorry. I couldn’t save her. But Chloe and I - we’ll avenge her.”

And just like that, Max was staring at a reflection of herself in the mirror wearing her same clothes, her same tears. Too many things she felt as absolutes lay in pieces at her feet, and she broke with them.

\--

Max must have been in the bathroom for fifteen minutes, but nobody turned as she reached the bottom of the stares. Chloe and Victoria looked thoroughly engrossed in the film. Kate had moved from her chair to sitting on the floor in front of Victoria. Kate’s hair had been pulled down from her bun, and it fell in thick, beautiful waves just past the top of her shoulders. Victoria had a hand buried in it, petting it and scratching Kate’s head. Kate wasn’t even watching the film - her eyes were closed and she leaned into Victoria’s hand like a feline.

Kate was beautiful and alive, vibrant. Victoria was strong and kind, nurturing. And Chloe was . . . distant, unlike the other Chloe. There was no quest of vengeance or discovery driving her.

Whatever world lay beyond the mirror, it was not Max’s. But it did share one thing in common - the storm was coming. That is what Victoria had felt at the beach this morning - the impending destruction of their home. Death.

But as she looked at these three girls, these three girls she loved, these three that she must protect - Max learned something from the Max on the Other Side. She learned resolve. Whatever it took - even if so little of what she’d gleaned made sense, she was going to protect them. No Nathan, no storm, no mystery was going to stop her. She had too much to lose.


	8. Wednesday Night (The Prophecy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe and Victoria share a moment from their pasts. The trio researches the Hopi prophecy and tries to dissect the omens of what is to come.

Once the movie was over, there was significantly less tension between everyone and it was a little easier to not think about today’s events. Max was leaned up against Victoria half-asleep by the time the credits rolled, and Kate stayed by Victoria’s feet well after Victoria stopped playing with her hair. That left three people awake and fully functional: Victoria, Chloe, and William. Joyce still was not back home from Pan Estates.

William was on the computer, but far enough down the credits and Victoria figured she should make conversation. “So, you used to go to Blackwell, didn’t you? Were you ever part of the Vortex Club?”

Chloe: “Nah I was … I was just a geek, I guess. I was too young to party and didn’t have any friends from middle school who were accepted. And Max left, so…”  
Victoria nodded. Max didn’t like to talk about it much, about Chloe and her’s relationship before the accident. “But I never saw you in arts classes, I don’t think.”  
Chloe: “That was never my deal. It was environmental science or marine biology for me, and Blackwell is the best around here - they may not have Mr. Jefferson for sciences, but it was still a good deal. I was going to transfer to Paris my junior year if we could scrounge up the funds.”

Victoria had never realized that Chloe had been an exceptional student. Maybe there was simply no emphasis on it before high school, but it was clear that Chloe had been proud of what she once had going for her. But it was also mixed with loss. Victoria’s sense of those around her was returning, and while Chloe’s father radiated stress and Chloe seemed floating between the pleasant presence of friends and an aching loneliness. Kate and Max, though, they were fountains of contentment, especially Kate. It was nice to feel safe.

Chloe seemed to be inspecting Victoria as well as she could without obviously turning her wheelchair. “I know you from somewhere, don’t I Victoria? Not Blackwell … Facebook maybe?”

Victoria was pretty confused at that. She was certain that she’d never seen Chloe before, and she was excellent with faces. It was part of the eye contact principle. It let you read people - when they broke the contact, how their body twitched in response, things like that. Chloe, for that precise reason, was hard to read. They were both observers.  
Victoria shook her head. “I don’t think so. I used to live pretty far out of town before I moved into the dorms, and before that I was in Seattle.”

Chloe just kept looking over at her, though, and finally turned her wheelchair to look straight at the pile of girls. “No, I do know you. The Tillamook County Queer Support Society.”   
Victoria swallowed, remembering back to years before. “Oh! I … don’t remember you, I’m sorry.”

Chloe: “Nah, it’s fine, you wouldn’t. I only went a few times. It … ah. My parents got me a car pretty much so I could start driving myself. I think they also liked to avoid the conversation. But I saw you there - you were passionate. It helped me to see value in my identity when so many people there just seemed … dejected.”

Victoria was hot in the face a little, and she stared down at Kate, who was terribly close to full-on slumping down to the floor. Kate hadn’t even had the long night that she and Max had, but staying up seemed to be a near-impossibility for her. It was only about 9pm, too.  
“Thanks. I stopped going years back - I got … I got angry, and I didn’t want to bring that attitude. How do your parents feel about it now?”

Chloe sort of bit the inside of their cheek. “We haven’t talked about it in a long time. It just sort of stopped seeming important, you know? It’s hard to take much of a gender role when you’re stuck scripted as sick. I think the closest I’ve gotten to an expression of androgyny is this hair, and I think it’s coming in as a femme fashion, so the point there is moot.”

Victoria nodded but she didn’t try and make eye contact. Chloe’s feelings were too alien for her - everything was so permanent in Chloe’s mind. Victoria couldn’t breathe without fluidity, and that was an aspect that she was rapidly coming to appreciate from her friends now that she was so … in touch with their feelings.  
And that’s about when Kate finally did slump over and fell on the ground. “Huh, what?” she asked, pushing up and swiping the thick mess of hair from her face.  
This seemed to snap Max back to consciousness, who sat up straight with a bit more dignity and began to rub her eyes.

Chloe: “Hey there sleepy heads. You just cannot stay awake through stuff like this, can you Max?”

Max pointed a finger at Chloe, but her head rested in her other hand. “Hey. It’s not my fault we only watch them at night. Or that Tori’s a space heater.”

Kate braced her arms against the coffee table and the couch and stood up, pushing her hair back behind her ears. “Whoah, hey, you guys should have told me I was falling asleep. What happened?”

Victoria smirked - “Oh, like you watched past the intro anyway.”

“Hey - well - I,” Kate seemed to be trying to think of a brilliant excuse. Max looked up at her and her messily framed face and smiled. Victoria didn’t have to be feeling Max’s feelings to interpret her pang of adoration. But those feelings did encourage Victoria to lean into her girlfriend and kiss her cheek.

Chloe watched their little triangle and smiled. “You guys make an adorable little trio. ( _And it’s super gay)_.” The second sentence was only mouthed, so only Max and Victoria noticed it - Kate was too busy trying to prove how awake she had been. But the silence mixed with Victoria and Max’s attention encouraged her to look, but Chloe was done with their comments, and just smiled in response, 100% innocent.

Kate seemed to look outside for the first time. “Oh, it’s pretty late.” She was thinking of her homework, but she didn’t want to bring it up considering she was the last one invited to this, nevermind that she knew Max would want to prioritize time with Chloe.

Max nodded for unnecessarily long, as if trying to shake off the drowsy. “Tomorrow’s a pretty big day … we should be getting back to Blackwell before Lights Out.”

Chloe gave a sad smile. “Well, I’m so glad you guys could all make it. We should do this again sometime - I’ve got an endless stock of sci-fi you guys can nap to.”

Victoria rather liked that idea, disregarding the context of getting to know Chloe better. “That would be fun - I may pretend otherwise, but I actually really love science fiction, especially 80s stuff. I might even bring Max along, too.” Something about their shared experience made Victoria significantly warmer towards Chloe.

“Cool: maybe we can watch Bladerunner without an unconscious girl in the mix.”

Max pouted, elbowing Victoria gently in the ribs. “Hey! No replacing me. Chloe’s mine.”

Victoria raised her hands in surrender, but then patted Max to indicate that she should get up. Kate stepped out of their way, edging towards Chloe.  
“It was so nice to meet you, Chloe. I hope I see you again soon.” She reached down and wrapped her hand around Chloe’s for a moment, smiling genuinely at her as she squeezed against Chloe’s unresponsiveness.  
“Yeah, totally.” Chloe sounded exhausted, but one by one the girls came up to her and promised to return.

–

The car ride home held a rather different feeling. Max was trying to figure out what she should tell Victoria and Kate about what she had seen in the mirror. Her world made little sense, and she had no proof  that what she was seeing was real at all. To claim that a feeling could be so intense that it physically affects a subject was one thing, but that Max could perceive multiple realities, that she held some sort of proof that multiple realities even existed … it would sound insane.

But Max looked, if just for an instant, into the rearview mirror of the car, and saw the Max in red plaid. That girl nodded to her, and she swallowed nervously in response.

“Guys,” she said. She swallowed again - both girls became attentive, though Victoria continued to focus on driving. “I think I know what I saw at the beach - the storm. And why the whales are dying. I think I saw … the future.”

Victoria was silent, as was Kate. But Victoria at least had something to say, moments later. “In the bathroom of the Two Whales, there was some new graffiti that said the sea and sky were killing living things, and that it was a sign in some prophecy. And while that sounds like bullshit - I could feel the ocean dying today. Something is happening in Arcadia Bay, and it’s bad.”

Kate seemed very nervous at the sound of a prophecy: “What did the graffiti say, exactly?”

Victoria repeated it as closely as she could, and Kate went to her phone, typing key words of it into a search bar. Within about two minutes, she had something. “Guys, this sounds a lot like the [nine signs of the Hopi indians](http://www.alamongordo.com/9-signs-of-the-hopi-indians/). Which seems to predict ‘the great destruction’ … like Armageddon I guess.” She kept reading for the moment but, you know, naturally, she was a little concerned.

Victoria was not entirely sure what that meant. “[Hopi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopi)? Like, a native American tribe, right? Is there a reservation nearby that I don’t know about or something?”

Kate shook her head, but she was in the back of the car, so obviously no one saw the gesture. “No, not really, according to the 2010 census most of them live in Arizona. I have no idea why that sign - the seventh sign - would have shown up in Two Whales of all places. I mean, the sea turning black sounds like an oil spill to me, but we haven’t had an oil spill for a while. I don’t know what could have killed those whales. But I don’t know why else anyone would have written that.”

Max was uncertain: “So, you guys don’t think I’m crazy? About the storm?”

Kate tried to be reassuring, putting her phone away, “Of course we don’t think you’re crazy. Whatever you’re seeing, whatever Victoria is feeling - they’re happening for a reason. I think that reason will reveal itself in time.” She tried not to say it like  _God_  would reveal it, but that was ultimately what was occurring to her. A vision of a city’s destruction, heralded by strange, unexplainable events like a blizzard with no clouds and an eclipse that could not have happened? These were the sort of events that prophets emerged during. But she figured the other two girls would take her less seriously if she brought that up.

Max was quiet for a bit, but knowing they trusted her encouraged her to speak. “I saw more than just the storm.” She wanted to hide the other world, but she also needed to explain what she learned. “I saw that Nathan drugged Kate, and that he drugged … Dana, too.” The second part might be a lie, but it was necessary to hiding the other reality.

They had pulled into the parking lot of Blackwell, but when their seatbelts were off, they didn’t get out of the car. Max continued. “And … and I think he might be involved with Rachel’s disappearance too. And somehow, the storm.”

Victoria sounded aggravated. “Look, Max. Nathan … it looks like I’ve been wrong about Nathan for a long, long time. But he’s still just a rich kid at an arts school - I don’t think he made a girl disappear, and I definitely don’t think he’s found a way to control the weather.”

 Of course, this was absurd, and Max knew it, but she trusted the Other Max. Kate’s face pinched in worry. “I know that,” Max said, starting to become exasperated. “I don’t know what’s happening to me! But if this all really is happening for a reason … I think we need to know what happened to Rachel Amber.”

Victoria sighed, sensing Max’s distress, knowing that whatever she’d been seeing was as intense and as real as what Victoria had been feeling for the past several days. Still, her first words were not supportive ones as she muttered,  _“That bitch,”_  quietly, just thinking about Rachel. But she knew that was, in part, just a way to deflect, to keep from thinking about the sudden disappearance of a girl that never could have vanished from sight - fires like hers burn bright before they are ever smothered. “All right, Max, we’ll try and find her, find out what she knows - she and Nathan were friends, so if anyone knows more about it outside of the Prescotts, she would. But tomorrow.”

Victoria opened the door and stepped out of her car. Meanwhile, Kate was turned around in her seat, looking straight at Max. She said quietly, as if hiding it from Victoria, “I trust you, Max. Whatever we have to do, I’ll help you.”

–

Victoria had already kissed Max goodnight, from what Kate could hear. She was just trying to digest the day, brushing her teeth and considering everything Victoria and Max had told her today. This morning, she’d confessed that Nathan tried to drug her. Since then, she’d been told that Arcadia Bay was going to be hit by a storm, that the sea was ‘turning black’ and seen death take birds and even majestic whales much too precisely to be random. She’d been told that she was not Nathan’s only attempted victim, and that, somehow, these two things were connected. And, somehow, even Rachel Amber was connected.

She knew nothing except that she was exhausted, and that her new friends seemed awfully special in ways that she could not connect to. She was nobody. These two wouldn’t have so much as noticed her if it weren’t for what happened at the Vortex Club party.  
The Vortex Club party … she wished she remembered more.

As Kate walked back to her room, a voice from behind her came forth, “Kate?” Kate jumped, turning around quickly, but she just saw the tall form of Victoria leaning up against the wall opposite of her room, clearly visible thanks to her bright clothes and hair despite the darkness.

“Oh, hey Victoria. I thought you’d gone to bed.” Kate retreated a little closer to her door, uncomfortable to be alone with the handsome blonde after yesterday.

Victoria shook her head and pushed herself off the wall, approaching Kate more closely. “Not just yet. I thought we should talk about yesterday.”  
Kate had been fearing that, and her eyes fell. However Victoria would put it, she knew what was coming. It was inappropriate. Even if Victoria had been the one to initiate it, she must have seen how Kate was looking at her, the warmth there. She’d shown herself too much. Maybe Victoria had thought she was being kind, or she knew that the guilt would help keep Kate from her. Or, maybe … she’d just wanted to. That idea did not help settle Kate’s heart, nor did it ease her guilt. “Oh,” was all she said.

“Yeah,” Victoria started, and she too looked down. Embarrassed? Not wanting the sort of contact of yesterday? Either way, neither of them could look at each other. “Look,” she began again, but this time she had words to give, “The past few days have been really weird for me. I keep feeling not like myself - as in, literally. I think I’ve been feeling other people’s feelings. I could feel Stella’s high and your fear and the boys who jumped us … how angry they were. I could feel what Nathan felt when he was beaten, and how the family of those whales mourned, I think. And I felt what you felt in my room yesterday.”

Kate’s face was red, but it wasn’t the heated color she’d had yesterday - it was shame. “I’m … I’m sorry then. I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t think you’d ever see me that way. And when Nathan came to your room yesterday … I didn’t get a chance to explain. I’m sorry.”

And then, something rather unexpected came from Victoria. She lifted up her hand and placed it in Kate’s hair, and she began petting it. “You don’t have to be sorry, Katie. You have every right to your feelings - how could I resent it? I’ve been cruel to you, and yet you are kind, and the way you feel about me, it’s … special. It was my fault that I kissed you, not yours.”

Overall, Kate was confused, but she looked up at Victoria, aware of the short distance allowed between them now that Victoria was combing her fingers through Kate’s hair. It was soothing, and the proximity was alluring, but the mood was different from yesterday. “But if you’re just feeling my feelings, then it’s my fault it happened at all.”

Victoria’s tone changed, and her eyes wouldn’t leave Kate’s now. A crooked smile came to her face, but it didn’t have the sort of patronizing quality that her smirks normally did. “Kate. I see how you look at me, and Max saw it before I ever did. And I see how Max looks at you, too. And I don’t think either of you are at fault. There is no fault in your feelings - they are _good_. I never knew anyone could ever feel like you two do about somebody like me. Kissing you was wrong of me. But the feelings that made me do it - those were real; yours, but real. And I appreciate you could feel them for me.”

Kate found herself suddenly pulled against Victoria’s chest in a tight hug, in shock. But after a moment, she put her arms over Victoria’s shoulders and held her just as tightly back. “Thank you so much, Victoria. Thank you for not hating me.” She was overcome with precisely what she hadn’t predicted: acceptance. It was not something she fantasized about, not like the tiny desires for Victoria’s kiss, her touch, her warmth. It was something that only meant something if it was true.

Victoria continued to stroke Kate’s hair, tilting her head up so that Kate’s could fit comfortably against her chest. “I could never hate you, Kate. Especially when Max has such a crush on you, nevermind all this weird bullshit that’s been going on.”

Now the shame blush felt like something different, even if Kate’s body couldn’t exactly tell the difference. They were both warm and uncomfortable. “I’m ignoring that in the name of sleeping tonight,” Kate said, which of course meant it wasn’t true, and Victoria laughed.

“That girl has so much love in her heart, I don’t think we’ll ever see it all.” Victoria kissed Kate’s head right through her thick mess of hair. “Well, you’d better get to that sleep you prize so much. I’ve got the feeling tomorrow’s going to be long and complicated.”

The two parted from each other slowly. Kate smiled softly. “Good night, Victoria.”

“Good night, Kate. I hope you sleep well.” There was something teasing in that sentence that Kate did not exactly understand, but she liked it. It made her feel like she was part of some private joke. Not just laughing at it, but included in it. She felt like she belonged.


End file.
